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About the Book

‘I could write a book’: frequently heard when parents talk about services for their cerebrally palsied children, and Conductive Education. This book is by thirteen parents and a grandmother, from Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each contribution a testimonio in its own right.

Whatever your connection with motor disorders in children, this is a book to ignore at your peril, the first collected statement by families of disabled children, one of Conductive Education's prime beneficiary groups and, in the Western world, its prime mover. These families’ experiences throw light upon questions of how modern societies might do things differently – and better – for children with motor disorders and their families, yet further reminder that progress for disability and for Conductive Education is born out of struggle.

Conductive Education is potentially for life – as must be any properly constituted service for those affected by chronic disabling conditions. It is not a program, an intervention, something to be done once, or now and then, or during certain hours of the day, or on certain days of the year, at a given age or in some particular place. Nor it it something that is primarily to be dispensed by a certain kind of person, a ‘conductor’ (however important conductors’ contributions might be to the process as a whole).

It is more than just pedagogy. It embraces and transforms every aspect of children’s lives, everyone and every activity involved in their upbringing, a whole new lifestyle. Conductive upbringing and a conductive lifestyle. No short order but, witness the content of this book, it can be done.